With The Release Of 'Moana', Disney May Smash Universal's Annual Box Office Record

It's safe to say that, aside from one big flop in Alice Through the Looking Glass and a few other films that underperformed, Disney's year at the box office has been impressive. So impressive has it been, in fact, that the studio is poised to not just break, but demolish Universal's annual box office record once the fiscal year wraps.

As of the start of November, the studio had generated an impressive $5.85 billion at the global box office, with three films — Doctor Strange, Moana, and Rogue One — yet to be released. Previously Disney's best year was actually last year, but it still holds second place to Universal, which finished last year with a $6.89 billion global haul thanks in large part to monster hits Jurassic World and Furious 7. On November 1st, Disney had a billion more dollars to go to catch up to Universal's annual box office record and since then, Doctor Strange has been released. Marvel/Disney's riskiest film to date has so far knocked out a substantial $617,025,426 global cume as of the writing of this article. Rounding the numbers, that put Disney right around the $6.47 billion mark — $42 million left to catch Universal's box office record and $430 million more to break it.

And this weekend was an excellent start: With the release of Moana, Disney's latest princess film is well on its way to pushing the studio past Universal and into the record books. So far the film, which had the extended holiday weekend to benefit its box office bottom line, has generated $82 million domestically and $99 million globally. That total will, of course, be added to in the coming weeks as Moana continues on a steady climb resembling that of Frozen or Big Hero 6. Will it cross the $1 billion threshold like this year's earlier surprise hit, Zootopia? It's hard to say, but it's certain the film will make enough to comfortably pad out Disney's annual box office lead, which December's Rogue One release will move the yardstick to a completely new level, one that no other studio might realistically hit for years — save, of course, for Disney itself.

It's hard to predict how much Rogue One will ultimately pull in at the box office. It's the first standalone film in the Star Wars universe, so it is a risk, but it still carries with it the Star Wars brand and enough online interest that it crashed Fandango's site during ticket pre-sales. It could make $500 million or it could be the fourth (or even fifth, depending on how Moana fares) film under the Disney umbrella to break the billion dollar mark in 2016, joining the esteemed ranks of Captain America: Civil War, Finding Dory, and the aforementioned Zootopia.

Either way, when the year is all said and done, Disney's dominance of the box office — and Hollywood in general — will be uncontested.